


the sound of major scales

by nightofdean



Category: Justice League of America's Vibe (Comics), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Dante Ramon Lives, Dante does not have a good time at all, Flashbacks, Healing, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2018-09-23 22:20:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9682454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightofdean/pseuds/nightofdean
Summary: Dante is back home, but it's not his home. He's been gone half a year, but for him it's been six years of torture and servitude to a dictator. Now Dante has to fight to reconcile his identity as the Hound with his past life and find balance between the two.





	1. Chapter 1

The Hound stepped out over the precipice, the skyline stained pink behind his goggles, he could see the planets awful beauty just fine. The city glittered (he thought it was a city at any rate), was constructed out of some type of gemstone, which was the first thing that caught his eye. When he exited the Breach the shine of gems, purple, pink, all colors, even ones he’d not yet known, nearly blinded The Hound. It was beautiful and he had to destroy it. The Queen’s wishes took precedence over rocks, even one time fancies. The Hound was devoted, at least he hoped so, all he knew was the Queen, the castle, and her kindness toward him.

She had found him in rags, starving, an amnesiac, dirty and disgusting, and barely able to clean himself. The Queen extended her generosity and rescued him from death, and he did everything he could to repay her. She had brought meaning to his life, a purpose, as soon as he had the strength he begged to be at her side always, to protect her. Yet, she would refuse and shut him out. His heart twanged strangely then and he felt like dying then, and would not eat for weeks, until finally she gave him a job.

Another tower of striking emerald fell, the rearguard was making their way to the center of the city. The Hound was beginning to think this settlement was a scientific research district, like the one on Piradell, which meant no innocents would be injured in this battle, hopefully.

The Hound did not take any joy in murder, if the Queen noticed this she didn’t make it known, which the Hound preferred. Whoever the Hound was before his memory loss, he guessed he was not a violent person. Sometimes, taking life was necessary, like when the Queen ordered an execution and personally wanted him to do it. The Hound loved his Queen but she took an enjoyment in death that struck a fear in the Hounds heart.

Today it grew overwhelmingly, this campaign was not scheduled to happen for another two weeks, and just now they are attacking Planet XSU. The off timing set off alarms and the Hounds stomach flipped. _Why now?_  

The Hound was not only loyal to the Queen, but the Crown itself, he saw often to the Princess Cynnthia as well, who had been absent for some time. Was that it?

Then why this sudden invasion? What was the purpose?

It seemed to convenient, the Hound, all too aware of the Queens animosity toward the Princess Cynnthia.

He had to do this quick.

Frighteningly aware of what he was about to do and the consequences the Hound raised his staff and concentrated on Princess Cynnthia’s life force.

The Hound stepped into the Breach and let it envelope him, surrounding him with doorways to foreign worlds and the fleeting sensations of lost worlds.

A memory of a warm hug squeezed him tight.

The portal tore into a science lab revealing a dozen armed guards. Their spear tips lit up and shot plasma beams toward his chest. The Hound had seconds to dodge before he met the fatal beams that could tear his body in half.

The palace guards shot off more rounds intending to trap him behind the pillar he was ducked behind. The Hound shut eyes closed and _felt._

Twelve guards in total spread out in a classic Trident maneuver, nearly impenetrable. The Hound saw all their blind spots and with a swipe of his scythe opened a small tear in front of him and sent six directed pieces of energy toward the guards.

He listened and soon heard twelve distinct grunts and groans as the energy shots took them out. The Hound felt again for Princess Cynnthia’s signature and found her…connected to the palace’s power source.

This – this would. No.

The Queen had a thirst for blood, but most especially a thirst for power. Even the Queen was willing to drop to these lengths, murdering her own daughter, using her as a source of power.

The Hound snarled, feeling for once, like his namesake, his eyes burned a terrible rusted red. More palace guards were fast approaching, the Hound scanned their signatures, a small chuckle escaped. The Queen had sent her best to destroy her most loyal dog.

Piradell’s elite soldiers were on their way to kill the Hound.

With a vicious sense of freedom, the Hound had never felt before he howled with laughter and brought down his scythe, destroying every computer and scientific apparatus in sight. The lab now sparked dangerously and alarms blared, the machines attached to the Princess released their grasp with a loud shriek.

Amid the noise and destruction, the Hound heard something snap, at least he thought he heard a snap, it sounded so far away.

The Hound pulled the Princess from her prison, she was awake, but just barely. Her energy had been drained.

A graze from a plasma beam stung his shoulder, the elite soldiers were here. The Hound clutched the Princess close to himself he’d have to play offense for now and then wait for an opening.

The elites barraged him with non-stop fire and hit him several times. After he had to use his body as a shield when the elites dared to aim for the Princess. His injuries were serious and he would either die here or must finish this now.

He adjusted the Princess from her limp position at his side onto his back, so he could do what he planned next. Which was something only the man (or someone he knew) he must have been before could have thought of.

With all his remaining strength, he took flight firing off multiple energy blasts, creating smoke and debris in the process. Under the camouflage of smoke, he quickly sliced a Breach into existence and held onto the warmth of the Princess.

_Most people think the hottest part of the flame is the white part. They're wrong._

His head throbbed, but it was too late and they were already leaving.

 

 

Not for the first time in his life, he woke up staring at an unfamiliar sun. His first instinct was to catalogue provisions and possible enemies, except this time he was stranded in a city. An alien city, that much he could tell. Somehow, he managed to land them on a concrete and metal building that was only forty stories high. Piradell’s cities soared, literally, sometimes looking at the flying cities twisted knots in his stomach, as if they shouldn’t be possible.

He tried not look at them as often as possible. But the –

No. He left that behind, and he and the Princess couldn’t stay long. He scanned the area, already aware of the Princess’ distance, found her several buildings down.

Ignoring the strange stares of those around him he made his way down the street. He flew because he had no patience for driving vehicles, but as he got closer to the Princess’ location he grew wary. There was a large crowd gathered, oscillating red and blue lights, and a battle ensuing.

The Princess was hidden thankfully, he could see her outline shining which meant she was using her illusions. The battle appeared to be between a crimson speedster and a man with an annoying musical instrument. Flying higher into the atmosphere, to avoid detection, he contemplated interfering but deemed it unnecessary as it appeared the crimson one was winning. Although he’d have to finish soon since the Princess was not a master of illusions just yet.

The one fighting with music was soon knocked out. As he began descending the crimson one lifted a hand to his lightning bolt, spoke a few words, and then looked right at him.

His stomach clenched, adrenaline spiked, gaze already searching for the Princess. She had few precious minutes to hide before her illusion gave up. It would be no use, he had to fight this speedster.

His feet touched the pavement, a peculiar springy-ness met his boots, a sensation he was sure he had never felt, yet.

“Who are you? What do you want?” the speedster said.

He opened his mouth to speak and then realized he had no real designation before and didn’t really want anything.

“I have no name.” He said, spotting the sparkling outline of the Princess, he finished. “and I seek asylum.”

There would be no battle today.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning in this chap for dante's flashbacks.

Barry’s teeth clenched at the sight of the familiar figure before him. Is this what became of Dante after Flashpoint? Was this person even Dante anymore? Or an even more powerful threat than Rupture ever was? Barry saw what Rupture was capable of first hand, his thirst for vengeance. His eventual death and Zoom ripping his heart out.

Barry shook himself of the images, that timeline was gone now. Earth Two Dante never visited Prime Earth and prevented Earth One’s Dante from –

This was Barry’s reality now, whatever it was.

Dante didn’t seem to recognize him at all, but he wasn’t attacking like his E2 counterpart did.

Instead he only spoke once so far, which only served to confuse Barry more.

Dante didn’t know who he was and needed help.

-

Cynnthia stood next to him now, her illusion wavering slightly. Their time was running out fast and without a response from the speedster he stood rigid, waiting for an attack. If the speedster did not believe him and attacked, the Hound would have no choice but to eliminate the speedster.

The small crowd was gone now, as was the weak villain the speedster dispatched earlier. Taken away to a blinking vehicle, no doubt this world’s figures of authority. Soldiers stood stone faced hidden behind their metal machines with weapons, gray carbon muzzles raised.

The speedster made his move, the former Hound swung the butt of his scythe, Cynnthia sprinted away, and the world exploded.

Everything went dark.

Immediately his first reaction to waking up was to cease the terrible stinging in his arm. But as he reached for the device imbedded in his arm a foreign hand smacked his own away. On instinct, he snatched the traitorous hand and used all his necessary strength and weight to pin down the intruder.

The intruder squirmed and whined her whole body stiffening under his hold as he led them out of the infirmary. His priority was to find Cynnthia and leave this world, the Queen was certainly after them. So far, this realm was hostile.

Fortunately, he was trained well. The next room was a convenient area for interrogation. Pushing the intruder toward a chair causing a rough connection, he set to work. He chose his words well, she could have alerted her colleagues already.

He asked her where Princess Cynnthia was.

A simple look of confusion crossed the woman’s face. Of course.

His gaze swept over the many screens in the room and he saw for possibly the first time in his remembered life, English.

They told him he arrived on Pirradell speaking gibberish, now he knew it was real. He sometimes spoke it quietly at night in his barracks.

He knew what it was and where in the galaxies it was spoken, he’d asked once. On a trading planet, there was a Green Lantern. Mordeth hated the Lanterns for the obvious reasons, but also because she wanted their power. Mordeth would talk often about what it would feel like to wield that power, how intoxicating it must feel. He could still feel her hot breath against his neck as she told him in detail how one day they would both raze a planet together.

The Green Lantern was a human, blonde, and never stopped smiling. When he asked what language, it was he spoke naturally, the Green Lantern seemed puzzled but answered all his questions. 

“How?” he said, loud enough to be heard.

A small noise came from the woman, but he ignored it. This was a mistake.

The woman grabbed his wrist and sharp pain shot through The Hound’s arm setting him off balance.

“If you want to keep that hand I suggest you put those on,” said the woman, her free hand indicating something behind him.

At that someone spoke from behind him, “I’m going to put these handcuffs on you, okay.”

He was aware that at the moment he didn’t have much choice, no matter how the stranger made it sound. The Hound let the newcomer put him in chains and lead him back to the infirmary.

-

Joe gave Caitlin a significant look as she left the infirmary with Dante firmly secured to the bed. If that would even hold him, Joe had met Dante before his disappearance, and now the guy looked like he permanently lived at the gym while he was gone. Dante wasn’t _that_ jacked, but he did have a really nasty scar to top off the assassin killer vibe.

Whatever had happened to Dante, Joe could only imagine.

Joe shook his head at the thought and sat down beside Dante’s bed. The man was silently glaring at the wall opposite and Joe was positive that if Dante possessed laser sight he would have used it by now. Instead Dante had let Joe cuff him _not_ resisting _at all_. Even though he was quite capable from what Joe could tell, Barry had confiscated a very nasty looking weapon from Dante.

So why not break out? Joe remembered the look of resignation on Dante’s face as he placed the handcuffs on him. Watched as his expression became blank and all emotion left his eyes. Joe had seen that face on men before, just not on men like Dante.

-

They called Cisco to the lab immediately, as soon as they confirmed it actually was Dante. Cisco was not taking it well. Barry decided to break the news before Cisco could see Dante, which meant catching him in the hall. It was crude but Cisco had to be prepared, had to know that Dante was different now.

Cisco exited the elevator, coffee in hand. Quickly, Barry moved to slow him down, “Cisco hold on, wait a second.”

Cisco took a few more strides but eventually stopped, now passed Barry. Brow raised he waited.

“The meta we caught is – it’s personal this time.” Barry halted not sure how to continue, it was too personal for him, for everyone. Barry’s hand turned into a fist, who was he to tell Cisco that his brother was still alive but retained no memory of him. Barry had to do this, he couldn’t let Cisco walk into that room unprepared.

“It’s Dante he’s back,” Barry didn’t get to finish before Cisco dropped everything he was carrying, papers and coffee exploding and ran into the winding bowels of STAR. Not asking where his brother was being kept.

Barry made to chase, to tell him the horrible reality but stopped. His abilities had caused this, he couldn’t use them to fix it.

-

The Hound had been subject to many interrogation tactics of which he was summarily taught to resist. Physical torture, he could withstand for nothing could have made him betray the Queen. Psychics were hard to detect and sought to use his mind against him and make the Hound think he was someone he was not. Despite all the tortures and deaths used to keep him in control the Hound still betrayed the Queen. The loyal Hound, the destroyer of worlds.

When the Queen finds him and the Hound knows she will because Mordeth is in everything, he will most certainly not survive the encounter.

_My faithful dog knows his place._

A clatter sounds at the door nearly making the Hound jump, but only just. He looks up to see a young man with brown skin and wide wet eyes. The man steps jaggedly into the room unsure, mouth opening and closing. The Hound looks to the other man, older and darker then the young one.

Seeking some kind of clue in the older man’s face The Hound sees another pair of wet eyes. The Hounds brows knit together, wondering not for the first time who he was before Piradell. Who was the man that fell from the sky?

“D-Dante?” the young one’s voice chokes out.

The name means nothing to the Hound.

The old one seeing the problem gets up and says something to the young one quietly, barely loud enough for the Hound to hear.

“Cisco it’s okay, it’s okay. Dante is different, he – he just can’t remember at the moment.”

A choking sob bursts from the young one, wet and vulnerable. The older one goes on. “We’ll help him. It’ll get better. I promise.” The older one holds the young one, Cisco.

The Hound watches in fascination at the two people holding and comforting each other. He remembers nothing of his previous life, and he is unbelievably relived at the thought. Did he show this kind of weakness in front of these people? The Hound knows that if he did such a thing in the palace he would have been flogged.

The Hounds fist clenches at the memory, he shuts his eyes, but that only makes it more vibrant. The elite soldier, Jin, holding the whip tight, knuckles white around the leather. He never begged, refused to show emotion the entire time. The Hound couldn’t even remember what the punishment had been for. Something minor.

“No, Dante!  No, no, no!” the voice, Cisco calls grabbing at his clenched hand. “Please, stop!”

The Hound stiffens further, unaware that he was already. He can’t let go not here, not in this place. There are shouts, muffled, and distant. Far away, so far. Something stings him, dragging him into Piradell’s enchanted sky.

-

Cisco sits beside Dante’s bed hunched over staring at his hands that can tear open dimensions, but were utterly useless this time at helping his brother. The blank expression Dante wore when Cisco saw him. When he spoke his name, voice breaking foolishly, fully expecting a joke about it.

Nothing came, just more staring and then Joe explaining that Dante couldn’t remember them. That they were trying to figure out what had happened to him. Cisco’s chest constricted, he’d only just gotten over the initial shock, and it was hard to believe at first. Then Dante started to panic, the monitors beeping, Joe seeing the blood coming from Dante’s right palm.

That cemented it for Cisco as he pleaded with Dante to let go, to stop hurting himself. Joe said Dante would get better, that they’d help him remember. He just wasn’t sure he was ready yet. To let go of the grief.


End file.
